Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa)

Important black writers like Olaudah Equiano and Jupiter
Hammon emerged during the colonial period. Equiano, an Ibo from
Niger (West Africa), was the first black in America to write an
autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah
Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789). In the book -
- an early example of the slave narrative genre -- Equiano gives
an account of his native land and the horrors and cruelties of
his
captivity and enslavement in the West Indies. Equiano, who
converted to Christianity, movingly laments his cruel
"un-Christian" treatment by Christians -- a sentiment many
African-Americans would voice in centuries to come.